December 7, 2014

OUR MAN IN MOSUL:

Within hours of Isis taking Mosul, Suleimani had arrived in Baghdad, where he has remained in semi-permanent residence ever since, in the home of a senior member of the Iraqi parliament's foreign affairs committee.

From there he has co-ordinated the defence of Baghdad, mobilised Shia militias and rallied his numerous proxies throughout the national legislature. He has also travelled north to prep the Kurds when Isis threatened Irbil in August and marshalled Iranian troops and airmen, who were deployed to Iraq within hours of the Isis rout.

Suleimani has been hailed across Iraq, particularly among the country's Shias, as perhaps the only man who can stop Isis. In Iran, too, where the threat from the blazing insurgency next door is increasingly keenly felt, much hope is being placed in Suleimani to turn things around.